What She'll Never Let Him See
by Midnight-Halos
Summary: Shunsui Kyouraku has never seen Nanao fight on the battlefield. If she has her way, Ise Nanao will never let him.
1. What He Doesn't See

Well, here's my first story on this account as well as my first story in Bleach.

I'm planning on doing a whole little series thing on Nanao and Kyouraku in a sort of He says, She says kind of style. So basically I'm planning on a whole bunch of two-shots based on some kind of theme and all of them will generally be connected in some way.

Disclaimer: I'm Asian, but I'm not Japanese.

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1. Battle

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Shunsui Kyouraku has never seen his Nanao-chan fight. 

The few times they'd had to go into battle, they'd get separated the second they set foot on the battlefield, even though he tried to keep an eye on his serious vice captain. He'd only see her again after the battle was over, rubbing her hands together as if to dispel dirt from her hands, or on rare occasions, if he was quick enough, glimpse her putting her glasses back on the bridge of her nose, her zanpakutou carefully hidden from sight and her expression perfectly composed before she shunpoed over to her captain's side.

The fact that the dead were the majority of those to be graced by Nanao's deadly, uncovered gaze did not go unnoticed by her captain.

Even rarer than those times where he almost saw Nanao's uncovered eyes were the times where he ended up going to stand by her side, rather than her coming to him. These were the times that she would just stay where she was, her eyes cloudy behind their glass shield-which had been replaced when he wasn't looking-, an arm hanging limply to the side with wisps of lethal kido crackling around her arm, and even more frightening than the kido was the pure disgust etched onto Nanao's otherwise unmarred face. The disgust was always inverted, Shunsui had observed with a note of weariness, and those were the times where he would have comforted her if she had let him. And while she never accepted the arm around the shoulder, she didn't hit him or reprimand him about unprofessional behavior.

He was grateful that Nanao never noticed that those were the days when Rangiku would bounce into the Eighth Division and distract Nanao from herself much more successfully than he ever could have.

Which only left him with imagining how elegant she must be in battle, as she almost always left the battlefield only a little more battered than when she stepped onto it. The majority of the blood that stained her clothes was always someone else's and was attached to her as if it was a layer of cloth and not really touching her, as if the dried blood would simply slide off of her as if her skin was glass if he chose to brush them away.

Sometimes, he wondered if his Nanao-chan was like the glass she seemed to resemble the most. Then again, it didn't really matter.

He would bother Nanao while she was busy managing budgets and taking care of paperwork and complain that he never got to see Nanao even spar with the others in their division and attempt to pester her into doing so.

Nanao would simply look up from her paperwork with a vaguely annoyed expression on her face, adjust her glasses, and tell her captain that he was being ridiculous and then she would sternly tell her captain that if he wasn't going to do his paperwork, to go away because he was making the office smell like sake.

Because if she had her way, Ise Nanao would never let Kyouraku-taichou see her fight.

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So, how was that? The second half of this should be up in about two or three days. 

If you have any ideas for any other themes, then feel free to suggest them. I could always use more ideas.


	2. What She Hides

I can't believe I got such a great reception! Thanks so much you guys!

This might disappoint some of you because this is from Nanao's view and to be honest, this half is a little bit angsty. Actually, most of the stuff from Nanao's view will be a little bit more serious than from Kyouraku's.

Still, I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: ...not mine. Let's just leave it at that

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Ise Nanao never wanted Kyouraku-Taichou to see her battle.

Battle was an ugly affair, no matter how many angles one might look at it. She'd never understood how bards who spoke of love and spring could sing of praises in reference to war. War was bloody, and everything about blood was gruesome, from its rotting stench and coppery taste to the way that blood would never completely come out of ones clothing.

But blood wasn't the reason that she hated war. Blood wasn't the reason that she didn't want Kyouraku-Taichou to see her fight. There were so many different reasons.

For one thing, if Kyouraku-Taichou was looking at her, he wouldn't see the foes that he was battling. She feared that he would get attacked while worrying about her and she wouldn't stand for that. It wasn't that she doubted her captain's ability in the battlefield-in the office, certainly, but never in battle-there was a reason why he was a captain and one of Yamamoto's successful former students after all. But still, she never wanted to see him in the Fourth Division, unconscious or wounded in any way. She didn't even dare think of him dying for fear that she would jinx his luck.

Kyouraku-taichou had heard her say that to Rangiku and had been ridiculously pleased until she set him straight, explaining that if he got injured, she would have to do even more paperwork, then asked him if he'd finished his paperwork in an acid tone. That got him running.

Then there was the fact that if Kyouraku-Taichou watched her, the Hollows, or Arrancar, or whoever was planning on attacking them, would realize that she was important to him. It wasn't that he was actually interested in her-no, she didn't even bother to think about such impossible things-it was simply that all captains looked out for their subordinates, especially their lieutenants and their other Seats. And if anyone realized that she was special in any sort of way, they'd be piling on her to devastate him. And if something like that happened, most likely they would succeed in eliminating her and their plan would work. Because after all, most captain's mourned the loss of their subordinates, especially Kyouraku-taicho. He'd be somber, get ridiculously drunk, then be normal the next day. Only Ukitake, Rangiku, and Nanao knew how deeply Kyouraku mourned for them those nights.

Nanao never wanted to be the cause of her captain's tears.

And then there were so many other reasons that she could call up. She might get hurt, her captain might let loose a devastating attack on his own people on accident if he was distracted, he might decide that she could cover it and then slink away in search for a sake bottle, she might die or get injured and then he'd be distracted, so many different reasons. And none of those would the real reason for why she didn't want him to see her fight.

No, the real reason was that Ise Nanao never simply fought. When she fought, she performed slaughter.

When she let the crackle of kido flare up her arm, when her zanpakutou was pulled out, and when the glasses were removed, Ise Nanao released the person that she used to be. She both lost herself and found herself in battle. She allowed herself to be overcome with the adrenaline, with the sound of screams ricocheting back and forth in her ears, and the feel of her blade slicing through flesh to end a life. And in allowing herself to submit to the bloodlust, she became the burningly passionate woman that had been drowning within a bloody haze back in the seventy-seventh district again.

She blamed the glasses.

No, she lied, she blamed herself. The glasses were simply a self-appointed symbol of repressing the person that she'd used to be. When she wore the glasses, she was cold, disciplined, concise. When she wore her glasses, she was the very image of control. They allowed her to be a person completely different from the one she had used to be and in that way, she was able to quell that which threatened to overcome her and everything she'd worked so hard to obtain. In contentment, she could remove her glasses safely and sleep, or bathe, or whatever else she meant to do. But when she removed them in the face of annoyance, of danger, in battle, in rage, or even _fear_, she set loose a gaze that was both freezing with the shadows of nightmares and burning with the flames of hell at once.

She hid her past behind a shield of clear glass.

When she fought, she was back in the seventy seventh district, surrounded by mindless viciousness, knee deep in squalor. Where she was, there was only her, her enemies, and death snapping eagerly at her heels. With every death, she eliminated another threat, covered up the weak, naive woman who had first entered Soul Society, and evaded death for just one more second. Because deep down, she knew that she was waiting to die again, alone. The fear of dying alone again allowed for her to be indifferent as she killed, to slaughter those weaker than she without a second, to throw herself into battle with stronger foes when any normal person would be hesitating, paralyzed by fear. Armed with that knowledge, it allowed her to be unnervingly apathetic as she made mincemeat of those who felt the unkind kiss of her zanpakutou, the malicious embrace of her kido.

She was forever immersed in the fear of death, the bitterness of being alone, the shame of what she'd become.

Because when it came right down to it, she was ashamed of losing herself to her brutal savagery. Because she wasn't strong enough to let herself move beyond the pain of her life before being a shinigami, wasn't strong enough to risk finding something to live for, wasn't strong enough to allow herself to be vulnerable...to be just a woman again.

And because of all that, she never wanted her captain to see her fight, because she knew deep within herself that he would be repulsed with her after seeing the way she killed so impassively, the way so many others had left once they'd seen what she could do with those deceptively elegant hands of hers. Oh, it wasn't that he'd make her leave; he would keep her because Yamamoto refused to assign to him another vice-captain once he'd found Nanao, but he'd keep his distance which was something she didn't want. He would hate her after seeing her fight and though she'd never seen a look of disgust on her captain's face, she knew that she would see revulsion cross his face once he knew. And that would break her more than any sword could.

It wasn't that no one else knew. Of course other people knew, other people had seen and a handful of people had remained by her side and hadn't left, like Rangiku for instance, but still...

All Ise Nanao ever wants is for Kyouraku-taichou to never see her fight.

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Thanks for reading! I'll probably have another theme up in a few days or so. I could always use more. 


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